Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

Nicholas Carr should read more widely:

There's a real poignancy to Kurzweil's dream of bringing his dad back to life by weaving together strands of DNA and strands of memory. I could imagine a novel - by Ray Bradbury, maybe - constructed around his otherworldly yearning. Death makes strange even the most rational of minds.

Charles Stross wrote that book already (heck, tons of other books in the same vein exist, I'm sure) - "Accelerando".

Technorati Tags: books

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks forward at the next major release of our Smalltalk products - there are some changes coming in the way the product looks, and the way the development tools visually present information. That said, it's still a ways to release (scheduled for late summer/early fall 2009), so some of the stuff shown today is subject to change. With that said, click on the image below to watch:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

New Icons in Cincom Smalltalk from James Robertson on Vimeo.

or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, graphics, icons

I think Matt Asay makes a fundamental mistake in agreeing with this comment by Robert Thomson from a Poynter Online piece:

But one of the -- Google -- I mean, the harsh way of just defining it, Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google, but it's terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content.

That's just completely wrong. What Google does is pretty simple - it makes it easier to find content that gets "voted up" by linkage. If news sites aren't findable through that mechanism, then it says a lot about those news sites - people simply aren't reading them and linking to them. You can dislike that relationship all you want, but it's real. What it means is that news brands are relatively weak. If you have a strong brand (like, say, Engadget) - then lots of people flock to your site.

The problem is this: the days of generalist news are ending. The death of newspapers is a symptom of that. Why do we go to Engadget during events like CES? Because we know that they'll have comprehensive, focused coverage on the tech/gadget niche. What are most papers focused on?

There's a reason that the Wall Street Journal is doing better than most of their paper bound competition - they cover a focused niche (market news). The Washington Post, or the NY Times (etc)? None of them have a focused niche, and in the online news market that's being born, that's a problem.

Technorati Tags: newspapers, media

Bruce Perens drops an interesting thought in the midst of an article about open source licensing - and I think it's worthy of discussion all on its own:

But most companies, even large ones, aren't yet completely able to cope with the implications of software licensing. At your next departmental meeting, ask how many people have clicked "Yes" on a license of a web site or software application while at work. Then, ask how many of those folks are authorized to enter into a contract on behalf of the company.

It's got to be an enormous number, especially given the number of online apps people use. Now add in the large (and growing) number of people who work remotely at least some of the time, and the problem just explodes. There's a whole web of assumptions surrounding software licenses that simply doesn't work anymore.

I'm not sure what can, or even should, be done about this - but there are probably a bunch of corporate lawyers who would prefer not to have to ponder the issue...

It looks like Facebook just took a lot more ownership of the content people upload to the site. The Consumerist notes an interesting change in the terms of service:

Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.

So as they (The Consumerist) say, don't upload anything you think you might ever want private; it's all public, forever.

Update: Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook responds.

Technorati Tags: social media, marketing

I've been wondering how Twitter was planning to make money, and now we're seeing the plan - it's a first derivative from advertising:

Thau says Twitter is developing a range of analytics and metrics products and services built around the information contained in "tweets," the e-mail and text messages that pass through its platform. "We can measure the tweets," he says. "We're trying to figure out what are the appropriate metrics around engagement and how to convey those."

How would that work? Would Twitter sell that directly? Would Twitter users be happy to see contextual advertising? How contextual can that advertising get at 140 characters per post? Who are the potential buyers of these analytics?

Technorati Tags: twitter

Dare Obasanjo has an interesting observation about Google's culture:

This expectation that a new Google product will need massive adoption to justify its investment or be cancelled within four months, as was the case with Google Lively, will be a significant dampener new product launches. Reading Paul Buchheit's post on the early days of Gmail I wonder how much time he'd have invested in the project if he was told that Google would cancel the project if it's user base growth wasn't competitive with market leaders like Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail's within four months.

This isn't a huge surprise, but Dare is one of the few people paying attention to the transition: Google has gone from "small and innovative" to "big and conservative" much more quickly than a lot of companies. It took Microsoft a lot longer to get there, but then again, their initial growth was slower.

The more interesting question is this: between the economic slowdown and things like Sarbanes/Oxley, the IPO market is just dead. Where's the challenge to Google going to come from?

Technorati Tags: innovation, corporate culture

This week's podcast is from ESUG 2008 - Dick Heijink's talk from about the CosmoCows WebTerminal project. It's a VW based "Rich Internet Application" framework they've built for their own use. You can grab the slides here - to listen now, click here.

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, esug08, ria

Well, at least we know this much: it was probably a mistake to let PC do brain surgery :)

If you're still yelling about "Web 2.0", you're chasing last year's trend (which means that marketdroids chasing after "marketing 2.0" are really behind the curve). Don't take my word for it - Robin Wauters has done the research:

So why do I say it's [ed: searches for "web 2.0"] fading? For one, because the number of startups that contact us and include the term Web 2.0 in the subject line or message is visibly dropping (and that's a good thing), and I hardly ever see it mentioned anymore on other technology blogs and news sites either. That's not really tangible, so I took a look at the number of mentions of the phrase across the web, and they seem to be decreasing significantly, reflecting my feeling on this.

Follow the link for Robin's conclusions, and links to the actual research. In the meantime, it looks like you don't want to pump your product up by using the "Web 2.0" phrase.

Technorati Tags: web, google trends

Ted Neward explains :)

My wife wasn't entirely pleased with the color contrast between the walls and floor once the vinyl floor for the bathroom went in - so it's back to the paint bucket for a two tone job. Joy :)

I like Fail Blog - and this is - well - special:

If you exist in the public eye at all - as a reporter, as a marcom type, as a product representative (etc, etc, etc) - nothing you say in public is private anymore. Nothing. If you talk in a public place, assume it will be broadcast. If you use Twitter - even with protected tweets - assume it will get pushed out. If you have a blog, assume lots of people will read it.

Why do I mention this? Mathew Ingram brings up a recent example of how badly things can go when a public person fails to understand this. Take it as a cautionary tale.

Technorati Tags: PR

It looks like Microsoft is getting ready to take the retail plunge:

Without detailing the plans, Microsoft said it has hired David Porter, a 25-year Wal-Mart veteran, to lead the effort. Sources say that Porter's mission will be to develop the company's retail plans and that the effort is likely to start small with just a few locations.

In general, this sounds like a good idea - especially given the success Apple has had with it. However, Apple has one huge advantage: they own the entire hardware ecosystem, and that makes their stores much more of a destination - the genius bar being the obvious example.

I'm not at all sure what Microsoft can do there. They could focus on the consumer end (Zunes, XBoxes) - the success of the XBox might make it easier to make a real effort on Zune promotion, for instance. The obvious question to me though, is this: would Microsoft consider entering the Windows OEM market themselves?

Technorati Tags: microsoft, windows, consumer sales

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we continue with yesterday's ListBox example - and cover multiple selections, and how to get the current selection(s) from the listbox. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

ObjectStudio ListBoxes - more properties from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

I'm sitting in my office, which looks out on the street. Last night and this morning, we have had a pretty stiff breeze blowing. Fortunately, we haven't lost power - our lines here are underground. Unfortunately, this morning is when the county collects recycling.

Why do I say unfortunately? Well, a lot of the recycling bins got knocked over in the wind, either overnight or this morning. The various items - papers, plastic and metal containers, etc - are just loose in these bins. When they fall over in a stiff breeze, the result is windblown garbage everywhere.

The irony? If this stuff were all put in the trash, it would be bagged and weighed down - and pretty much immune to the wind. The attempt to be more thoughtful by recycling is having the net effect of spreading trash all over my neighborhood (this is hardly the first time that lots of wind has coincided with recycling day).

So the irony is - at least in my neighborhood - recycling efforts have led to more trash being blown into the woods and ponds in the neighborhood.

Technorati Tags: trash, recycling

Looks like Smalltalk is being used at the University of Catalonia.

Technorati Tags: education

I'll be putting together a video demo tomorrow - one of the Web Velocity engineers created a Photo Browser demo script, and I think it should make a decent demo. Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: web velocity

Google has added an interesting option to GMail - you can opt in to have your signature appended with your location. As Wired notes, this might not always be desirable, so you want to be careful about opting in:

The obvious argument is centered around privacy. Sometimes it's trivial, like when you send a note to your boss saying you're sick, only to have your e-mail signature rat you out by announcing that you're sitting behind home plate at the ballpark. More seriously, there's e-stalking and the open invitation to unwanted guests. Also, letting everyone know where you are all the time is just creepy. As a society, we're not ready for that yet.

They note that Latitude (Google's new location awareness for phones) has the ability to broadcast a fake location. Yahoo has similar faking capabilities in their location awareness apps. In the meantime, there are some amusing aspects to this. They determine your location via your IP address. So, if you tie into the network via a VPN, you could get some funny results. I could make it look like I'm located at Cincom corporate HQ pretty easily, for instance :)

Technorati Tags: location awareness

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we take a look at the ListBox widget in ObjectStudio - how to use the basic properties in a UI. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Using ListBox widgets in ObjectStudio from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Yet another update that requires restart, but Apple - like Microsoft before them - is slowly numbing me to that. No, the irritation is with Safari. I had to drive my wife to work today, because one of the cars is in the shop. I set the Mac to reboot and took off. I came home to see Safari prompting me "do you really want to quit?", and restart timed out on that.

Sigh. Who died and made Safari god? When I tell my system to reboot, why does a browser get to veto that with a useless dialog box?

Technorati Tags: stupidity, safari

Nicholas Carr reports a big cloud computing move by IBM:

Today, as a new era in computing dawns, IBM announced another deal, this time with Amazon Web Services, a pipsqueak in the IT business but an early leader in cloud computing. Under the deal, corporations and software developers will be able to run IBM's commercial software in Amazon's cloud. As the Register's Timothy Prickett Morgan reports, "IBM announced that it would be deploying a big piece of its database and middleware software stack on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. The software that IBM is moving out to EC2 includes the company's DB2 and Informix Dynamic Server relational databases, its WebSphere Portal and sMash mashup tools, and its Lotus Web Content Management program ... The interesting twist on the Amazon-IBM deal is that Big Blue is going to let companies that have already bought software licenses run that software out on the EC2 cloud, once the offering is generally available."

This is going to have a pretty big impact on how software like this gets sold and licensed.

Well, the basic functions of the powder room are back in action:

At least it'll take my (deleted) again :)

Now we have a floor - the equipment comes next, plus the patch job on the wood floor in the hallway:

Here's the audio-only for the talk by Julian Fitzell on Seaside at ESUG 2008. Grab the slides here.

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we use a code example in ObjectStudio to demonstrate an immutability problem - and then show how to work around that problem (as opposed to fixing it - on some projects, a work-around may be an appropriate short term solution). To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch on Vimeo:

Working Around Legacy Immutability Problems from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

David Meerman Scott:

People want to do business with people. We're human, and we crave interaction with people who know us. When you build content especially for your buyer personas, you build a relationship with people before you ve even met them.

How about the opposite case? Have you recently visited a company Web site or blog and said, "Wow! These guys understand me!" Didn't it make you feel different from how those boring old sites you usually see do?

When online content seems created by some nameless, faceless corporate entity, it doesn't entice us. And we're just not interested in doing business with that company. A corporate-brochure site will never start a World Wide Rave.

That's why we keep the Smalltalk website updated on a daily basis, and why we try to keep things real on the blogs. It's also why there's a TalkBack widget right there on the left side of the blog - I'm chatting with someone now, as it happens :)

Technorati Tags: customer service, conversational marketing

I've posted a few photos of our bathroom remodel job; I really didn't think that priming and painting it would be a full day job. I should have remembered from past painting tasks that bare drywall just sucks up primer like a herd of drought stricken animals presented with an oasis :)

At least the painting is basically done - we'll have to put ceiling white on the ceiling, and touch up whatever gets scuffed during the rest of the project, but that's small stuff.

At ESUG 2008, Julian Fitzell gave a presentation on Seaside - where it's been, where it's going, and how he's been involved in its evolution. You can download his slides here - click on the image below to watch:

You can also watch the video on Vimeo:

Seaside - History and Progress from James Robertson on Vimeo.

On today's Smalltalk Daily, I answer a question that came to me via the talkback widget on my blog - how to deactivate a parent window when you pop up a child (without using a dialog). To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch on Vimeo:

Deactivating a Parent Window in VW from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, vw

Lots of people seem to positively revel in being "bad at math". Well - here's where that can end up taking you and your bills:

Patrick Logan wonders about this answer to "Where do you use Smalltalk" at Stack Overflow:

I love the responses that say, "It's great. But only use it with good developers that do unit testing." Why would you use anything with any other kind of developer? And is the claim there is a tool that actually _works_ in those situations?

It's a great comment.

I've made the plunge:

I was driving around the area today, and no complaints about local coverage - we'll see how it goes on the road. I do like the touchscreen interaction.

Technorati Tags: iPhone

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we take a look at charts in ObjectStudio, and how you build them in the GUI Design tool. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Using Charts in ObjectStudio from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

One of the few glitches I've had with the Mac is the on again, off again nature of my Windows shares. We have a few Windows machines (and a network drive that uses SMB), so it's useful to have my Macs set up to use SMB. Lately (after the last update, but who knows whether that had anything to do with it), the Windows shares have disappeared from the "Shared" sidebar in Finder. I can still mount any share, but I have to recall the name (which is a pain the neck). I found this via Google, but it didn't seem to have any impact. If anyone has ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Technorati Tags: smb, windows share

This is an interesting thing the folks at PC World picked up on:

Somewhat obscured in the hubbub about Google announcing Thursday a mobile version of its public-domain book library was a separate announcement that may be much bigger: an Amazon spokesman told the New York Times that the company is working on a way to make books formatted for its Kindle e-book reader available "on a range on mobile phones."

The iPhone is an obvious candidate, but there are others (the Storm, the various Android models). THat would be really cool - I'm not at all sure I want to buy a Kindle (I don't really travel enough to justify one) - but I'm about to get an iPhone...

Technorati Tags: e-reader, iPhone, kindle